The Grinch and Pat Purcell

60 union employees picket the Herald, seeking renewed contract talks and better medical benefits

by Dan Kennedy

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21 (updated at 4:15 p.m.) - About 60 union employees of the Boston Herald picketed outside One Herald Square this afternoon to protest stalled contract negotiations and what they characterize as inadequate health-insurance benefits.

Chanting "What do we want? Health care! When do we want it? Now!", the Newspaper Guild members, many of them carrying signs, marched in an ellipse for approximately 15 minutes. In a pre-Christmas touch, a Grinch in full costume arrived to dispense lumps of coal.

According to union officials, management has proposed a two percent annual wage increase for each of the next four years. They say the first year of that raise would be wiped out by a 10 percent hike in medical costs, or a total of $141 a week for anyone with family coverage. The union has long complained about the Herald's medical-benefits package, under which employees pay more than 98 percent of insurance costs.

Today's demonstration took place in the context of a vital turning point for the Herald. Earlier this year, publisher Pat Purcell agreed to purchase Fidelity's Community Newspaper Company, which publishes about 100 papers, mostly weeklies, in Greater Boston and on Cape Cod. According to a recent report in the Boston Globe, Purcell has had trouble obtaining the financing he needs to close the deal, estimated at $100 million to $150 million.

"Our feeling is that we're being held hostage to the CNC acquisition," Lesley Phillips, president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Boston, told the Phoenix as her workers picketed. "The Grinch is the Boston Herald - that's our opinion."

Reporter Tom Mashberg, who heads the Guild's editorial unit at the Herald, says that if management were to pay 50 percent of health-insurance premiums, the cost would be minuscule compared to the cost of the CNC deal - "less than $400,000 a year."

But Purcell, in a telephone interview, charged that the Guild over the years has chosen to put salary demands ahead of medical benefits, and thus has only itself to blame for the fact that its members must pay most of the insurance freight. "The ball is in their court," he said, adding that the union needs to show "some flexiblity and some creativity. They haven't given us anything to negotiate at this point."

Purcell said it was "absolutely not true" that contract negotiations were taking a back seat to the CNC deal, adding, "This would be an issue under any circumstances." He predicted that the sale - originally scheduled to be completed in November - would be finalized in January, saying, "We're moving okay on that."

As for the demonstration itself, Purcell commented: "It looks like about 10 percent of the membership was out there. If they choose to demonstrate, that's fine, that's their prerogative."

The demonstration kicked off promptly at 1:30 p.m. Although there was a festive air to the picketing, a sense of outrage could be detected as well. From the time Purcell purchased the Herald from his mentor, Rupert Murdoch, in 1994, employees say they have been repeatedly asked to tighten their belts so that their paper - a distant number two to the dominant Boston Globe - could survive. Union reporters at the Herald generally earn salaries in the $35,000-to-$50,000 range, some $15,000 to $20,000 less than their counterparts at the Globe.

The Herald's Guild members comprise some 325 reporters, photographers, artists, editors, advertising, and customer-service employees. Union members say they have worked for more than two years without a raise and for more than one year without a contract.

"Over the years, Herald employees have given up wages and benefits to keep their paper alive," the Guild said in a written statement. "The apparent unwillingness of the Herald to treat its union workers with the financial respect and dignity they deserve belies the Herald's community image of a stalwart to family values."

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Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www.dankennedy.net

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Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com

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Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

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